Mark Carney could hardly have hoped for a better test of his pet policy of "forward guidance". As he chaired his very first monetary policy committee meeting, financial markets had got themselves in a funk about the Fed's proposed "tapering" of quantitative easing. Bond yields had shot up across the developed world, including in the UK, and expectations of an interest rate rise had been brought forward by an entire year.

Perhaps it was not surprising that against the volatile market background, Carney managed to win over his MPC colleagues to the idea of trying their hands at a spot of forward guidance immediately – and the unexpected statement after their 3-4 July meeting, urging investors not to get too carried away, did indeed help to calm the febrile atmosphere, and bring bond yields back down.

He seems to have convinced both doves and hawks to hold their fire until next month, when it now appears increasingly likely they will unite around some more formal version of forward guidance, promising to keep interest rates low, and stimulus in place, until some target – perhaps a chunky increase in nominal GDP – is met.

Forward guidance is sweeping through central banks like a virulent rash, and it is precisely at economic turning points, as market over-reaction risks pushing up borrowing costs and choking off a nascent recovery, when a carefully-timed bit of "jaw jaw" by policymakers can be helpful.

But Ben Bernanke's struggle to manage the markets' expectations over the past couple of months shows that this new approach can be a dangerous weapon to handle: perhaps Carney will find investors less malleable than his MPC colleagues.